The College Hill Independent

Back

Friends at War
Personal Reflections from Brown
. . . by Elizabeth Reinikordt and Jonathan Miller

It’s hard to choose a name. But for me, it’s not because the people currently sitting on aircraft carriers in the Middle East are just G.I. Joe or G.I. Jane. It’s because there is Phil T., and Aaron B., and Tom D. There are the kids from high school graduation who wore their new army gear under their graduation robes—too many to name. I have neighbors, co-workers, and friends, who are on the brink of risking their lives in the name of the U.S. government.

I’m from a farm that is near a sizeable city in the heart of this country, where the working class send their kids to the Army, Navy, and Marines if and when they make it through high school. Though kids go to college, for many, the only way to make that possible is by the stipend given by the Army.

This is where Aaron B. stands out in my mind. We dated senior year of high school, went to prom together, and the whole bit. After graduation, I got ready to go off to college, and Aaron worked to save money for community college. When Aaron and his new girlfriend had a kid, however, things changed a bit. He needed more money to support his family, let alone the costs of school. This past summer, Aaron joined the Navy. I saw him a week before he left to be stationed in South Carolina and wished him and his family luck, but this was before any mention of a war in Iraq. He was happy to be able to support his family, but if this 20-year-old husband and father was faced with the decision to join the Armed Forces with imminent war, his decision would have been infinitely harder. Should he risk his life in order to support his family?

My greatest fear is that many of my friends, and many working class youth all across the nation, do not have the option of weighing personal, moral, or political convictions about the theoretical reasons for war. Instead, in order to participate in higher education or simply have enough money to live, many of this country’s youth are effectively forced into being on the frontlines of war because it is the best way to survive. And on the eve of war, all I can do is hope for their safety, hope that Aaron can soon come home to his baby son.
My friend’s name is Aaron, and soon he will be going to war.

—Elisabeth Reinkordt ’05

My sister is 26, a graduate of Yale University and a practicing doctor who specializes in Gynecology and Obstetrics. She is also a Captain in the United States Army. Usually the second sentence gets the stare. Ivy League institutions just don’t spawn ranking officers like they used to.

You are probably wondering how my Ivy League-educated sister, a liberal Democrat who is 5feet tall, weighs one hundred pounds, and is too small to effectively carry an M-16—she is trained to carry a 9mm side arm—ended up at basic training in San Antonio straight from graduation in New Haven. The answer is simple and mirrors many other soldiers’ experiences. The army pays for school! The army agreed to pay the costs of her medical school in exchange for my sister’s skills after she graduated. She joined so that she could be a doctor and make it easier for my parents to pay for me to go to college.

So far my sister has been lucky. She is stationed in an Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., and has received no orders indicating she will be sent to the Middle East. For the foreseeable future, the closest she will come to war with Iraq is treating American soldiers injured there. However, six members of her medical corps have been sent, two to aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, four to Hospitals in Kuwait. While any deployment of my sister to the Middle East seems unlikely now, it’s always a possibility looming in the back of my family members’ minds.

My sister’s name is Caela and, for now, she is not going to war.

—Jonathan Miller ’05

Back to Indy Home